I just sat down and went through banned books one by one, and what got me is how many of them are the exact books students should be reading. To Kill a Mockingbird, Things Fall Apart, Orlando, Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Brave New World. These are not throwaway titles. These are books that ask hard questions about racial relations, colonialism, censorship, government overreach, class, gender identity, and the kind of world we are building.

When schools pull books like these off shelves or out of classrooms, students lose more than a reading assignment. They lose the chance to wrestle with difficult history, complicated power, and perspectives that do not always make adults comfortable. That is exactly why these books matter. If young people are old enough to live in this political climate, they are old enough to read literature that helps them understand it.

I am calling on public school districts to adopt clear policies that keep classic literature available to students and stop removing books simply because they address race, gender, religion, colonialism, or political control. If a book is widely taught, historically important, and part of serious literary discussion, it should not disappear because a topic is called disturbing. Disturbing is not the same thing as unworthy. In a lot of cases, the disturbing part is the truth the book is asking us to face.

If you believe students deserve access to literature that challenges them instead of shielding them from reality, please sign this petition. We cannot say we value education while cutting kids off from the very books that teach them how to think.